"We've seen it all before, haven't we?" said one former England player over lunch here today, referring to the Great Ball Tampering Row which never quite got airborne.

"It's a bit like being caught doing 35mph in a 30 zone. It's nothing really."

Most of the old pros agree and so, it seems, do South Africa, the match referee, the umpires and the International Cricket Council.

The ICC declared the matter closed after South Africa missed their morning deadline to make official their concerns about ball-tampering after seeing footage of Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson. The umpires decided not to bring a charge against any player for a Breach of Law 42.3, which covers this sort of thing.

There has been some criticism of England, though, and the most pointed has probably come from former captain Michael Vaughan. "It certainly looks like Jimmy Anderson has had some kind of play on the ball," said Vaughan on BBC Radio Five Live. "You have to look at the world of cricket and if it was Pakistan what would we make of it?"

He added: "Stuart Broad stood on the ball, and then Jimmy Anderson collected the ball, whether it was the next over or the over after, and started playing around the area where Stuart Broad had created the scuff marks. They were just trying to get the ball to reverse swing. It looks quite bad on the TV screens, I'm quite disappointed because I don't like to see that sort of action in a game."

Sky, understandably, have been less animated than the local TV station. Nasser Hussain, Vaughan's predecessor as captain, said: "We've all been there. We're not whiter than white. Where you see the ball and think would it be nice to get nails into that, get it reverse-swinging. But you've just got to leave it alone because if the opposition see you going like that to the ball they get very fidgety."

Attention turned back to the cricket, however, when England went in to bat again. It's a good match to win for England. South Africa pulled out a little earlier than most people thought, 40 minutes after lunch, when they were 447 for seven.

That set England 466 to win in 146 overs. It will be a long day and a half for the batsmen. The pitch, in truth, is not playing badly halfway through the fourth day. Certainly the slight up and down bounce that Jacques Kallis referred to on the second day has not got any worse. But Morne Morkel has been the most awkward fast bowler on either side, with his bounce and there is a feeling that at one stage or another Dale Steyn will make a really telling contribution in this series.

After 507 minutes in the field England will be feeling about as weary, mentally and physically, as South Africa when they batted for the second time in Durban. But at least they have survived until tea intact.